Spurring after and then past one of the wheeling braves, he swept his sabre across the fellow's bare throat with a drawing stroke, and half detached the scowling, furious, frightened head from the body.
There was a wide space of open ground before him immediately.

The Apaches know nothing of sabre work; not one of those present had ever before seen such a blow or such an effect; they were not only panic-stricken, but horror-stricken.

For one moment, right between the staring antagonists, a bloody corpse sat upright on a rearing horse, with its head fallen on one shoulder and hanging by a gory muscle.

The next moment it wilted, rolled downward with outstretched arms, and collapsed upon the gravel, an inert mass.
Texas Smith uttered a loud scream of tigerish delight.

He had never, in all his pugnacious and sanguinary life, looked upon anything so fascinating.